The Regulators - 02

by Michael Clary

  When he walked into the room, I could immediately tell he was very unlike the members of the Regulators; before me stood a professional. He didn’t possess the humor or the carefree attitude that I was used to seeing. Before me was a man that chose his line of work because it appealed to him. He wasn’t chosen like Jaxon.

  These differences are why I worked very hard to get an interview with him.

  Ma’am.

  “You are a rather difficult man to meet. Um, should I call you Snake Charmer or Mr. Snake Charmer?”

  You can call me Snake, ma’am. That’s what my team calls me.

  “Okay, that sounds easy enough. I’ve been briefed on what information is classified, but as far as I know, your involvement as one of the extraction teams is fair game. Am I correct?”

  Yes ma’am. I have been instructed to cooperate and answer any questions that you may have concerning that mission.

  “Okay then, take me back to when you first got the assignment.”

  It wasn’t so much of an assignment, ma’am. My team had just finished a mission and was called into a briefing. At the time, the contents of the meeting were considered top-secret, but I have been given permission to explain these contents to you.

  “Please do so.”

  We were briefed about certain aspects of the supernatural world that has been kept a secret from the public at large since the dawn of men fighting monsters. We were told that a large zombie outbreak in El Paso Texas had just blown the lid off the secret supernatural world. We were informed that special men were chosen as Guardians to fight these supernatural creatures. We were also advised that certain parties were awaiting a Guardian to be chosen from inside of the city of El Paso.

  “What else were you told?”

  We were told that the zombie presence in El Paso was of a particularly bad nature, and if the Guardian failed, the entire country would be at risk.

  “Were you asked to intervene?”

  No ma’am. The situation needed to play out. We were only asked to provide two volunteers if things went south. I volunteered immediately as did another teammate that you may refer to as Scalp Hunter.

  “Okay, as it turned out things didn’t go south. A Guardian was chosen, and he eventually led a large group of survivors out of the city. What happened next for you?”

  Well, we watched the situation unfold. I won’t speak for Scalp, but I had a lot of difficulty believing that zombies were rampaging through some city in Texas. It just didn’t sound believable. At the most, I expect to see a few twitching corpses. I wasn’t really prepared when I saw the first piece of footage that had been leaked through the internet.

  “What did you see, and how did it make you feel?”

  I saw bodies, with injuries so severe they should have been dead, attacking living people and devouring them. I don’t really know how to describe how I felt. I’ve seen some pretty terrible things in my line of work. I’m no stranger to violence, but that footage actually made me sit down and catch my breath.

  It wasn’t long before a man named the General came forth and through a series of events and probably some pretty tall tales, led that group you mentioned to safety. Suddenly, our mission had changed. Things were working out the way the higher ups were hoping for. I didn’t really understand this. I believed that a strong military presence should have entered the city and destroyed the zombies. The higher ups wanted the situation to be handled by the General.

  When the General gave that speech and announced that he was going back into the city after the survivors, Scalp Hunter and I were immediately shipped to a temporary base in the outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Once at the base, we were sent to a large warehouse that was filled with men such as Scalp and I.

  “You mean military men?”

  Not just men from the military. I believe there were some SWAT team members as well. Where they came from didn’t seem to matter as much as them being proven in battle. The men in the warehouse had all been in some serious action. They also had serious talents.

  We were informed that small teams were being formed to extract survivors. These teams would be responsible for whatever area they were chosen to work in. The job was simple enough. We would get directions to a survivor. We would extract the survivor. We would place the survivor in a safe place for pick up while we retreated far enough to escape, but close enough to protect the survivor if need be.

  No one ever explained to us just how hostile the environment actually was.

  I mean, we didn’t expect it to be a cakewalk, but we just…Well, I just don’t think that a person can actually prepare themselves for what we were sent into. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I went. Those people needed help and I was glad to offer it. It’s just, wow, it was terrible. It was easily the worst situation I had ever or will ever be put into.

  Not everyone was assigned to a team. Most of the guys in that room were marked down as backup in the event that a team went down. None of us actually thought such a thing was possible. We were surrounded by some of the most dangerous men in the country. All of us were highly trained warriors. It was pretty ludicrous to think that an enemy that couldn’t even fire a weapon would give us any problems.

  Scalp Hunter and I made a team. We were assigned to the Downtown section of the city.

  “What were your opinions about the General?”

  He was a joke.

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  Let’s just say that the men in that warehouse were given years of training. When things go bad, guys like us were the people that got sent in. All of us were from different branches, but that didn’t matter much. We all knew that each and every one of us could be counted on.

  “You didn’t feel that the General could be counted on?”

  Of course not, he was an untrained civilian. We had absolutely zero respect for him. He had no business being anywhere near any one of us. It was almost offensive that this guy was leading his own team. Don’t get me wrong; it was a great thing that he did when he led all those people to safety, but now the grownups were ready to take care of things.

  “Did you happen to see the ‘famous fifteen’?”

  Is that what they are calling it now? Yeah, we got to see it. The General took on a shit ton of zombies. It was impressive, but it was somewhat misleading.

  “How was it misleading?”

  When the men in that room saw the General fight, we automatically assumed that we could do a whole lot better. Guys like me unfortunately come with a bit of arrogance. We watched an untrained civilian go to town on a bunch of zombies, and we in turn, well, we made assumptions.

  “What kind of assumptions did you make?”

  The footage led us to believe that the zombies were vastly inferior to the average man. It was pretty stupid of us to assume that, but hindsight is 20/20. The zombies weren’t at all inferior. Those bastards are lethal. It would have better if the higher ups would have clarified that the zombies had just come through an explosion and were somewhat dazed and damaged.

  “So you didn’t believe what you were told about the General being a chosen Guardian?”

  Did I believe that some random man was chosen to defend humanity against the forces of darkness and that he was gifted with special abilities in order to combat supernatural threats? Hell no. Nobody was ready to believe that shit.

  “Well, obviously somebody believed it.”

  Not the troopers. The people that believed in that crap certainly weren’t in our warehouse. I had heard a few rumors over the years, but it was never anything I paid much attention to.

  “What kind of rumors?”

  I know that I had heard rumors about a Mr. Hardin. Supposedly, everything about the man was black ops and classified. It was said that he was associated with a team that dealt with monsters. In other words, he eliminated non-human threats. Like I said, it was mainly nonsense stuff. I never saw the man and neither had anyone else as far as I knew.

  “Mr. Hardin
wasn’t at the warehouse?”

  No, he wasn’t there. And let me tell you, the guys in charge. They didn’t believe in the General either.

  “At what point did you realize that Mr. Hardin was actually in charge of the operation?”

  Take off.

  “What do you mean?”

  He spoke to us through our earpieces en route to El Paso. I think it was sort of getting around that the men in the warehouse weren’t too convinced with all that we’d been hearing. He came on the radio to let us know differently.

  “What did he say?”

  He basically told us that if we underestimated our adversary, we weren’t going to make it out alive. I’m not sure it was completely necessary. I mean, we were literally the best in the business, whether we were believers in the Guardian or not, we weren’t exactly going to go easy on the zombies. I think he just wanted us to know that the shit was about to hit the fan.

  “Did his words have any effect?”

  Any man that would tell you he wasn’t nervous before he entered a city full of zombies is a bold faced liar. It doesn’t matter how easy you believe those suckers will go down, you are about to fight something that shouldn’t exist, something that has already taken over a city. So, his words didn’t make us take our mission any more serious, but it did let us know that he was in fact a real person and that he’d been facing threats like this for a very long time.

  “How did you get into the city?”

  We took a plane to our designated drop zone and parachuted from high altitude. Once we touched down, we were supposed to secure our own transportation and radio in for the first extraction.

  “How did that go?”

  It went fine. We all touched down and regrouped behind an old building without any problems or zombie sightings.

  “How many were on your team?”

  There were five of us. I was team leader. Scalp Hunter was there as well as a guy named Voodoo, a guy named Fox and a guy named Pitt.

  “Okay, take me through the next few hours.”

  After regrouping, we immediately set out for a truck that Pitt had spotted as he was coming in. We figured that it would handle anything we needed. There were still no signs of anything hostile even as we hotwired the vehicle and removed the two corpses from inside of it.

  “There were corpses in the truck?”

  Yes ma’am. It was a mother and her son.

  “How did that affect you?”

  It didn’t. I’ve seen far worse things than that. It’s unfortunately a part of my job. In order to function and still do a job like mine, you have to really deaden the parts of you that will break up when you view an atrocity.

  “I understand. What happened after you got the truck running?”

  We radioed in to find our first target. It wasn’t very far. We ended up leaving the truck. We figured that the engine sound might be too loud, and it would be safer to hoof it.

  We found the family in an empty clothing store. There were four of them in total, a father, a mother and two young boys. They were half-starved and the mother had a twisted ankle. Fortunately, none of them were infected.

  Scalp was at the door covering us as we assessed how difficult it would be to move the family. Voodoo radioed in for our extraction point while Pitt rendered aid to the mother’s ankle. The situation was rather calm when Scalp gave out a low whistle.

  I went over to him immediately and took the opposite side of the window that he was looking out from. He pointed a finger in the direction he wanted me to look and I saw the enemy for the very first time.

  It’s a lot different when you aren’t seeing them on a video feed. There’s just something evil about them. It actually made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight. I tried to repress a shiver, but I must have failed, because Scalp noticed my discomfort.

  “I had that exact same reaction,” Scalp said.

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t have the words. We both just stood and watched the zombie make its way along the street. It was a woman. She was wearing a business suit and missing one of her shoes. Her hair was matted into a gory clump and stuck to the side of her face. Her face was rotted and it seemed as if the skin had actually constricted tighter over the bones. Her walk was what really freaked me out. She walked slow, but not slow enough, despite missing a shoe. It seemed as if she was more than capable of a sudden burst of speed if the occasion required it.

  Mr. Hardin’s words started to echo through my mind. These weren’t slow moving corpses. They weren’t hindered by death or decay. It was quite the opposite. These things were in better than prime condition when you include the fact that they don’t slow down or get tired.

  “Take her out,” I said to Scalp.

  He gave a nod of understanding and went to the entrance. He cracked the door just enough to poke his mp7 out, took sight and popped off a muffled round into the zombies brain. The dead woman went down with an almost noiseless thump.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone.

  There was a pack of them around the corner. They must have been pretty far away because we never heard them. We would have never even of known that they were there, but one of them ran over to investigate the fallen corpse.

  It was the weirdest thing. They really have a very low intelligence, but seeing the zombie woman collapse must have piqued his curiosity in some way. I guess they are capable of being curious when something different than their norm occurs.

  Regardless, the new zombie came running over to investigate. It had probably been a young man judging from his clothing which consisted of a t-shirt and jeans. His hair had been cut rather short before he was turned, and I could see a tremendous laceration across his scalp. I’m not actually sure what happened to his nose, but it wasn’t there.

  He stood over the fallen zombie woman and just sort of stared at her. Then he lifted his head and began to look up and down the road. Going with my best guess, I would say that this zombie had probably seen other zombies get shot and drop. Possibly he learned to associate zombies dropping with humans shooting guns. It’s just a guess, mind you. I really don’t have a clue as to why a zombie does anything.

  Scalp began to move towards the door once again. I motioned for him to stand down. If there was another zombie, there could be even more. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck begin to stand up again. I didn’t like the feeling.

  I went over to the father of the family.

  “How many of them are in this area?” I asked.

  “There are a lot of them. That’s why we couldn’t leave the store. Every time I look out the window, I see them out there. If they see you, it’s all over.”

  I had heard about how dangerous the zombie screams were. I had no desire to bring down a bunch of them on top of us, but I also didn’t want to be stuck in that store. Reluctantly I gave the order.

  “Take him out Scalp,” I said.

  Scalp obliged me and stepped to the door. The door unfortunately made a creaking sound and alerted the curious zombie to his presence. The scream echoed up and down the road. It was answered almost immediately and suddenly the area became a hot zone.

  All in all, I think there were about fifty or sixty that rushed towards us. It was a valuable lesson. Strictly speaking, we had never before faced anything like that. Most of the time when I shoot at someone, they don’t want to be shot. These things don’t care if they get shot. Also, two in the chest doesn’t work. We had to adjust our aim for headshots. Anything less than a headshot and we’d be lucky if we even knocked them off their feet. It was a different way of fighting. Of course, we were informed about all that. It’s just a bit of a challenge when we’re used to putting holes in center mass.

  It got pretty close, but we made it through. It’s a real test to actually remain calm and stay on target when they keep getting closer and closer. After the dust settled, so to speak, things got a lot easier. We hoofed it to the truck, radioed in, and located our extraction point.

  We we
re lucky to be Downtown. We kept our extraction points on the rooftops of tall buildings. Two of us would lead them to the top, while the rest of us set up shop on a nearby rooftop in order to snipe out anything stupid enough to come up after the survivors after our two team members left.

  It worked for us pretty well; we just made sure to choose extractions points as far away as possible from the ones we’d previously used.

  “So you figured out a pretty good routine while you were there?”

  Yes, I was satisfied with the results. We were highly successful in our extractions. That’s why it came as a surprise when our Colonel radioed in that we were being pulled out of the area.

  “It wasn’t Mr. Hardin that told you?”

  No each team had their own set of advisors working behind the lines. Mr. Hardin oversaw everything, but he only personally dealt with the Regulators. To be honest, I’ve never even seen the man, and, after he radioed in when we lifted off, I’ve never again heard his voice.

  “Were you told why you were being pulled out?”

  We were told that a new player had taken the field, and there were too many unknowns for us to remain. We really didn’t know what that meant, but our extraction was scheduled for the following evening.

  “When did you hear about the other teams?”

  The following evening on our way to our extraction point we were told that the Eastside team had been attacked. Halfway to our destination we got a call involving children at an old hotel. They left the extraction up to our discretion, but informed us that the Northeast team had been overrun on an extraction they tried to handle on their way out. They also said that it might have been a trap set up by the mysterious new player.

  I put it to a vote. We opted to at least check the situation out. None of us wanted to leave any kids behind. The hotel in question was only a few blocks away so we got there pretty quickly. The building was a brownish, dirty color. The windows were all boarded up on the first floor. The front door was completely missing, and a large piece of plywood had been nailed up in an effort to keep out any trespassers.